Preview, buy, and download songs from the album The Trinity - EP, including ”Faded (feat. Tyler Woods),” ”Talk About It,” ”Love Me or Leave Me Alone,” and many more. Buy the album for $3.96. Songs start at $0.99. The Bible clearly affirms the existence of three distinct Persons that are all identified as the one God of the universe. As is traditionally stated, St. Patrick illustrated the trinity by using a shamrock (i.e., a three-leaf. The Trinity Market places strong emphasis on student involvement, serving as a teaching and learning tool for Tiger undergraduates in marketing, management, and entrepreneurship. Learn how students get involved. What Is the Doctrine of the Trinity? The doctrine of the Trinity is foundational to the Christian faith. It is crucial for properly understanding what God is like, how he relates to us, and how we should relate to him. But it also raises many difficult questions. How can God be both one and three? Is the Trinity a contradiction? If Jesus is God, why do the Gospels record instances where he prayed to God? While we cannot fully understand everything about the Trinity (or anything else), it is possible to answer questions like these and come to a solid grasp of what it means for God to be three in one. One God, Three Persons. The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons . Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person. These definitions express three crucial truths: (1) the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, (2) each Person is fully God, (3) there is only one God. The doctrine of the Trinity is foundational to the Christian faith. It is crucial for properly understanding what God is like, how he relates to us, and how we should relate to him. But it also raises many difficult questions. The word 'trinity' is derived from Latin trinitas, meaning 'the number three, a triad'. This abstract noun is formed from the adjective trinus (three each, threefold, triple), as the word unitas is the abstract noun.The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons. The Bible speaks of the Father as God (Philippians 1: 2), Jesus as God (Titus 2: 1. Holy Spirit as God (Acts 5: 3. Are these just three different ways of looking at God, or simply ways of referring to three different roles that God plays? The answer must be no, because the Bible also indicates that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons. For example, since the Father sent the Son into the world (John 3: 1. Son. Likewise, after the Son returned to the Father (John 1. Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit into the world (John 1. Welcome to my channel. I believed the doctrine of the Trinity for almost 40 years of my life. I was raised to believe this doctrine, formally educated concer. Q: 'What about the doctrine of the Trinity, the Holy Trinity?' our A: You and I live in a three-dimensional world. All physical objects have a certain height, width, and depth. One person can look like someone else, or behave. God is a trinity of persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Doctrine of the Trinity. Introduction Because the word trinity is never found in the Bible some wonder about whether this is a biblical doctrine or not, but the absence of a term used to describe a doctrine does not necessarily mean the term is not. Acts 2: 3. 3). Therefore, the Holy Spirit must be distinct from the Father and the Son. In the baptism of Jesus, we see the Father speaking from heaven and the Spirit descending from heaven in the form of a dove as Jesus comes out of the water (Mark 1: 1. John 1: 1 affirms that Jesus is God and, at the same time, that he was . Jesus is God, but he is not the Father or the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God, but he is not the Son or the Father. They are different Persons, not three different ways of looking at God. The personhood of each member of the Trinity means that each Person has a distinct center of consciousness. Thus, they relate to each other personally . While Jesus and the Father are both God, they are different Persons. Thus, Jesus prayed to God the Father without praying to himself. In fact, it is precisely the continuing dialogue between the Father and the Son (Matthew 3: 1. John 5: 1. 9; 1. 1: 4. Sometimes the Spirit is treated more like a . But the Holy Spirit is not an . The fact that the Holy Spirit is a Person, not an impersonal force (like gravity), is also shown by the fact that he speaks (Hebrews 3: 7), reasons (Acts 1. Corinthians 2: 1. These are all qualities of personhood. In addition to these texts, the others we mentioned above make clear that the Personhood of the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Personhood of the Son and the Father. They are three real persons, not three roles God plays. Another serious error people have made is to think that the Father became the Son, who then became the Holy Spirit. Contrary to this, the passages we have seen imply that God always was and always will be three Persons. There was never a time when one of the Persons of the Godhead did not exist. They are all eternal. While the three members of the Trinity are distinct, this does not mean that any is inferior to the other. Instead, they are all identical in attributes. They are equal in power, love, mercy, justice, holiness, knowledge, and all other qualities. Each Person is fully God. If God is three Persons, does this mean that each Person is ? Does the Trinity mean that God is divided into three parts? The doctrine of the Trinity does not divide God into three parts. The Bible is clear that all three Persons are each one- hundred- percent God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each fully God. For example, Colossians 2: 9 says of Christ, . This would make each Person less than fully God and thus not God at all. The divine essence is not something that is divided between the three persons, but is fully in all three persons without being divided into . The Father is not one- third of the being of God; he is all of the being of God. And likewise with the Holy Spirit. Thus, as Wayne Grudem writes, . If each Person of the Trinity is distinct and yet fully God, then should we conclude that there is more than one God? Obviously we cannot, for Scripture is clear that there is only one God: . Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. In other words, there is one God who exists as three distinct Persons. If there is one passage which most clearly brings all of this together, it is Matthew 2. We baptize into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Second, notice that each Person must be deity because they are all placed on the same level. In fact, would Jesus have us baptize in the name of a mere creature? Therefore each of the Persons into whose name we are to be baptized must be deity. Third, notice that although the three divine Persons are distinct, we are baptized into their name (singular), not names (plural). The three Persons are distinct, yet only constitute one name. This can only be if they share one essence. Is the Trinity Contradictory? This leads us to investigate more closely a very helpful definition of the Trinity which I mentioned earlier: God is one in essence, but three in Person. This formulation can show us why there are not three Gods, and why the Trinity is not a contradiction. In order for something to be contradictory, it must violate the law of non- contradiction. This law states that A cannot be both A (what it is) and non- A (what it is not) at the same time and in the same relationship. In other words, you have contradicted yourself if you affirm and deny the same statement. For example, if I say that the moon is made entirely of cheese but then also say that the moon is not made entirely of cheese, I have contradicted myself. Other statements may at first seem contradictory but are really not. Sproul cites as an example Dickens. But he avoids contradiction with this statement because he means that in one sense it was the best of times, but in another sense it was the worst of times. Carrying this concept over to the Trinity, it is not a contradiction for God to be both three and one because he is not three and one in the same way. He is three in a different way than he is one. Thus, we are not speaking with a forked tongue . This is very important: God is one and three at the same time, but not in the same way. How is God one? He is three in Person. Essence and person are not the same thing. God is one in a certain way (essence) and three in a different way (person). Since God is one in a different way than he is three, the Trinity is not a contradiction. There would only be a contradiction if we said that God is three in the same way that he is one. So a closer look at the fact that God is one in essence but three in person has helped to show why the Trinity is not a contradiction. But how does it show us why there is only one God instead of three? It is very simple: All three Persons are one God because, as we saw above, they are all the same essence. This should make it clear why it is so important to understand that all three Persons are the same essence. For if we deny this, we have denied God. But it is possible to go deeper. If we can understand more precisely what is meant by essence and person, how these two terms differ, and how they relate, we will then have a more complete understanding of the Trinity. Essence and Person. Essence. What does essence mean? As I said earlier, it means the same thing as being. To be even more precise, essence is what you are. At the risk of sounding too physical, essence can be understood as the . Further, we clearly should not think of God as . In regards to the Trinity, we use the term . Therefore it is often difficult to have a concrete definition of Person as we use it in regards to the Trinity. What we do not mean by Person is an ? The relationship between essence and Person, then, is as follows. These personal distinctions are modes of existence within the divine being, but are not divisions of the divine being. They are personal forms of existence other than a difference in being. The late theologian Herman Bavinck has stated something very helpful at this point: . As theologian and apologist Norman Geisler has explained it, while essence is what you are, person is who you are. Neither should we think of the Persons as being defined by attributes added on to the being of God. Wayne Grudem explains,But if each person is fully God and has all of God. Rather, each person of the Trinity has all of the attributes of God, and no one Person has any attributes that are not possessed by the others. On the other hand, we must say that the Persons are real, that they are not just different ways of looking at the one being of God . While there are some illustrations which are helpful, we should recognize that no illustration is perfect. Unfortunately, there are many illustrations which are not simply imperfect, but in error. One illustration to beware of is the one which says, . This explains how God can be both one and three. God is not one person who plays three different roles, as this illustration suggests. He is one Being in three Persons (centers of consciousness), not merely three roles. This analogy ignores the personal distinctions within God and mitigates them to mere roles. Summary and Application. Let us quickly review what we have seen: The Trinity is not belief in three gods. There is only one God, and we must never stray from this. This one God exists as three Persons. The three Persons are not each part of God, but are each fully God and equally God. The distinctions within the Godhead are not distinctions of his essence and neither are they something added onto his essence, but they are the unfolding of God. That is the heresy of modalism.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2017
Categories |